Domestic production among the Innut of La Romaine : persistence or transformation?

Abstract

The central concern of this thesis is to describe the character of domestic production among the Innut of La Romaine, on the lower Cote-Nord of Quebec, with the view to determining the reasons for its persistence and transformation. Special emphasis is placed on describing the methods by which the commensal family unit ‘reproduces' itself over time. The role of use-value production, income from wage-labour, state transfer payments, and the sale of commodities such as furs and handicrafts, as well as the patterns of bush-food distribution between domestic units in reproducing the commensal family unit are considered in detail. -- One important conclusion of the thesis is that in the post-contact period the general pattern of long-term change in Innu domestic production has been a transformation away from reliance on income from fur sales to meet the needs of the household for essential commodities to a growing dependence on government transfer payments. Today, social security payments and other income indirectly derived from government transfer payments are the motor of the economy in which the Innu are situated. Domestic activities, whether these be hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering, or craft production, cannot be financed without these payments. They are in a sense a form of guaranteed income, with numerous strings attached, which allow harvesting activities to continue and even flourish in certain circumstances despite the rising demands for and cost of industrially-derived products. Thus, domestic production in La Romaine - harvesting practices, craft production, systems of cooperative labour and food distribution - continues until the present-day, but state transfer payments are now an essential component in the financial foundation of this form of production.